[scribus] arabic

[Gregory Pittman]

On 01/17/2012 07:37 AM, Gregory Pittman wrote:
> On 01/17/2012 04:31 AM, Jean-Louis Cordonnier wrote:
>> I want to write this in a text frame :
>> *Mahdia* (arabe : ???????) est une ville côtière...
>> How can I get the arabic word from right to left ?
>>
>
> This remains clumsy. The worst case situation is when you want to have a
> bit of Arabic inside a frame with a left to right language. The bottom
> line is that it's probably not doable, at least in a straightforward way
> (see below).
>
> Here is what I find using 1.4.1svn:
>
> There is a button in Properties > Text > Color and Effects for right to
> left text -- the one with the backwards 'R' in it. Even if you are in
> Edit Contents mode, even with text highlighted, when you select this
> feature, all of the text in the frame switches to right to left.
>
> I'll have to see if one might create a Paragraph style that might allow
> something more restricted.
>
> One possible workaround worth trying, if you have only a single word in
> Arabic, would be to use inline graphics. This would require making a
> small frame with your Arabic and its right to left mode, then converting
> to outlines, then converting to image. Then copy this frame, at which
> time you can use this in another text frame in Edit Contents mode by
> pasting as you enter text.
>


As I look into this a bit more, I see you cannot specify right to left 
in Paragraph/Character Styles.
Also, when I try to convert to outlines, then image with more than one 
character, there are X's drawn through the outlines on conversion to 
image, so this isn't feasible.

There remains the possibility of making a small text frame, then 
overlaying it on the other frame, if there is mixed languages. This may 
require some fiddling.

Greg